Now, the banter: Another week lurches toward its midpoint. Sorta scattered at this end, trying to get a couple things going, but nothing really catching hold yet. It’s like scratching a match and trying to get it to light. You know it’ll happen eventually, but it’s going to take a few scratches first. But I swam fairly well Tuesday. You flail in one part of your life, and you do better in another.

Or, as Clifford Ray Jones might have put it: Just keep both hands on the wheel.

I wish I had more words for you today. I wish I had more links. But I have this:

Trump’s fans tend to express little regard for political norms. They cheer at his most outlandish statements. O’Reilly asked Trump if he meant it when he said that he would “take out” the family members of terrorists. He didn’t believe that Trump would “put out hits on women and children” if he were elected. Trump replied, “I would do pretty severe stuff.” The Mesa crowd erupted in applause. “Yeah, baby!” a man near me yelled. I had never previously been to a political event at which people cheered for the murder of women and children.

Post navigation

44 responses to “Not covered in drivers ed.”

With regard to Mr. Jones and his unfortunate accident, I wonder if there was any indication of Cheetos involvement. (Old joke)

From FDChief’s final post on the last thread, the money quote:

“Two days after the Malheur Refuge was taken over, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which monitors extremist groups in the US, said that the far-right, anti-government militia movement has been expanding. It identified 276 militia groups, up from 202 in 2014, representing a 37 percent increase.
The militia groups typically adhere to extreme anti-government doctrines and subscribe to “groundless conspiracy theories” about the federal government, said the SPLC. The Center also pointed out that no one has been held accountable for taking up arms against the federal government at Cliven Bundy’s ranch in Nevada – a fact that it claims has just emboldened extremists.
“When the federal government was stopped from enforcing the law at gunpoint, it energized the entire movement,” Heidi Beirich, director of SPLC’s Intelligence Project, said. “The fact is, Bundy is still a free man and has not paid the money he owes to the federal government – and the militiamen who aimed rifles at federal agents have gotten away with it.”

1257 chars

Joe K said on January 27, 2016 at 1:58 am

Guess he got ejected, while trying to ejection.
Question, in the car? Where was the deposit going to end up?
Rip Abe fish Vagota.
Pilot Joe

142 chars

Dexter said on January 27, 2016 at 3:38 am

Close as I can come to tell is the older fella at work who got caught wanking in a broom closet as he watched a young woman emptying the sludge pumper. And the guy who was getting a hummer from the skank who couldn’t wait. My fellow forklift man saw it and spread the word. ..if I would have seen it I would have kept my mouth shut. They were secluded amongst steel coils but not secluded well.

396 chars

David C. said on January 27, 2016 at 6:36 am

The Y’all Qaeda trials should be a real circus. How many do you think will try to defend themselves, and how many will be defended by a lawyer provided by the evil federal government.

My sister works in a Chicago trauma center and has many natural selection stories like Mr. Jones’ last one. Her best, which I may have told her once upon a time: a motorist was being serviced by a young lady when he lost control of the vehicle and rammed into a tree, killing them both. My sister’s summation: He came, then he went.

Off that topic: My work-life balance is completely out of whack, but I read NN.C daily and appreciate the banter so very much and hope to engage before I am in diapers.

504 chars

beb said on January 27, 2016 at 8:27 am

I guess the Nuns were right that masturbation will send you to Hell. Not that I was ever taught by Nuns.

The militia guy who said he’d rather die than go to prison got his wish. I wonder why the FBI acted now. Was it because the governor of Oregon complained about their inaction or was it because Bundy and the others were driving over a hundred miles to a meeting with sympathizers. A drive on isolated roads that would make an arrest easier?

It’s pretty clear that when Pres Trump orders the Zylon Gas it supporters will only cheer. And you can bet Halliburton will be there to build the concentration camps.

617 chars

Connie said on January 27, 2016 at 8:50 am

Remember when I told you about enjoying the Detroit Institute of Art’s Inside Out program when it was in nearby Wolverine Lake last year? I am delighted to tell that it is going to be in Commerce Township this Spring and at least two of the art works will be on my library’s property. Very cool, I’m excited.

309 chars

brian stouder said on January 27, 2016 at 9:15 am

Kim, good to have you here!

The following two sentences from our Proprietress encapsulate what I love about nn.c:

“I know we generally start with a little banter before getting to the bloggage, but really, can this wait?

Detroit — A Detroit man watching a porn movie while driving his car got into an accident and died. The man, who wasn’t wearing pants, was watching the movie on his cellphone, said police.

made me laugh out loud!

For one thing, it reminds me of the scene in Dr Strangelove when the president calls the 5-star general (George C Scott) and his mistress answers the phone, as the general is on the toilet. When she yells to him “It’s the president!” – he yells back “Can it wait?”

Obviously the motorist would answer – ‘no!’

What was the term we learned here, a month or two ago, for male masturbation? – something like ‘shaking hands with the bishop’? –

905 chars

alex said on January 27, 2016 at 10:06 am

Chastising the pope.

20 chars

Connie said on January 27, 2016 at 10:07 am

Why is Trump still the headline rather than last night’s arrests etc.????

73 chars

brian stouder said on January 27, 2016 at 10:21 am

Alex at 10 – hah!!

Connie – agreed on the question

I’ll (grudgingly) give that guy this much credit: he knows how to surf the media waves.

I cannot believe that his misogynistic/xenophobic/pre-emptive paranoia shtick can actually WIN the presidency, but it’s powerful enough to affect the outcome (ultimately at the expense of the Republicans)

352 chars

Deborah said on January 27, 2016 at 10:24 am

MichaelG, Cheetos? I don’t get it?

34 chars

Joe K said on January 27, 2016 at 10:37 am

Deborah,
Man goes to a doctor and says, Doc my member is orange. Doc can’t figure out what’s wrong so he ask the man what a typical day is like, man says get up go to work come home eat supper, watch some porn while I’m snacking on Cheetos.
Pilot Joe
Here all week
Try the veal

282 chars

Kirk said on January 27, 2016 at 10:42 am

Shining the dragon.

Boxing Goofy.

36 chars

Kirk said on January 27, 2016 at 10:43 am

Off topics, but I just heard this on the radio and found it interesting.

Andrea Kremer was on the Dan Patrick show talking about possible benefits of medical marijuana for NFL players. She said that there’s a big reefer store right across from Mile High Stadium in Denver and that tons of fans now tailgate by getting smoked up. Fewer fights in the stands. She also said she visited a reefer smoking club during a Broncos game. Whenever the Broncos scored, they gave out free bong hits.

489 chars

Bitter Scribe said on January 27, 2016 at 10:53 am

Can you picture the kind of tantrums that would erupt from President Trump every five minutes? People call Obama “thin-skinned,” but support a guy who repeatedly berates a cameraman for not panning the crowd.

208 chars

Julie Robinson said on January 27, 2016 at 11:18 am

Eww, eww, eww, eww! Applies equally to Cheetos and Trump, who looks like a Cheeto.

82 chars

MichaelG said on January 27, 2016 at 11:35 am

You’ve probably seen that apartment complex in Pacifica on the news. The one where the place is falling into the ocean. I lived in Pacifica for a while when I had just married my first wife. Not at that spot on the bluff but a couple of blocks inland. It’s cold and gloomy. You see the sun maybe three times a year. The foggy air is so full of salt that the local sport is sitting on the curb watching your car rust. I swear. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

Pacifica is just a few miles up the coast from Half Moon Bay where the big Maverick’s surf competition takes place.

597 chars

adrianne said on January 27, 2016 at 11:37 am

One of the stranger masturbation in unexpected places stories was at my former newspaper in Syracuse, where a member of the janitorial staff would jack off in coffee cups left on female reporters’ desks. The memorable quote? “Fill it to the Brim…with him!”

258 chars

alex said on January 27, 2016 at 11:46 am

Waaaahhhh. They killed LaVoy. He was my favorite, if only because of his name. LaVoy Finicum. Sounds like a Harper Lee character, if only she’d written more than one novel.

I found the Ryan Lizza piece interesting, particularly with regard to how movement conservative ideological purity holds much less sway with GOP voters than racism and know-nothingism. As Ann Coulter was just quoted, and I paraphrase, Trump could turn the White House into an abortion clinic and she wouldn’t care.

“Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes… The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!”

Among the other earlier signs of the apocalypse that we’ve been witnessing, I’d put Michael Moore sitting down for quite the buddy-buddy chat with Fox’s Megyn Kelly last night right up there. He was, like, giddy. Lord knows what she was thinking. Anyway, here’s 8 minutes-worth of something else Trump hath wrought, if one cares to scroll down this link:

Michael G: I lived in Pacifica in the 1950s. In those days it was a dumping ground for poor whites. I’m glad in retrospect that I spent some time there. It’s made me very realistic about things I would have missed if I had had a nice middle class upbringing, and I have a lot of stories I could tell about these destitute people who came from all over the South and the Midwest and from Canada too. The only thing that differentiated us from our neighbors is that we were better educated, had books in the house and so on. We had moved from Berkeley and eventually moved back there.
Glad the Bundy bunch got the shove. I wish I could feel sorry for them, but I think they are a bunch of creeps.

696 chars

Scout said on January 27, 2016 at 2:47 pm

Sue, true, there are still some of them there, but the leadership is in custody. I predict the rest will give it up sooner rather than later.

141 chars

brian stouder said on January 27, 2016 at 3:22 pm

Very well-played by the Good Guys & Gals; and the fact that firearms STILL came into play and one chucklehead got killed proves all the more that the methodical approach by the Good Guys is the best one

Ali Saleh, 22, is originally from Queens, New York, but told authorities he spent about seven months living in Fort Wayne with two co-workers.

and

According to the affidavit, law enforcement agents interviewed Saleh at a Fort Wayne hotel on July 29, 2015. The address isn’t provided in the documents.

This made me say “huh” – ’cause the family and I were hotel-living back at that time, too. It will be… interesting to know which one he resided in

593 chars

Deborah said on January 27, 2016 at 3:59 pm

Off topic, but something we discussed weeks ago: After trying every place I could think of in Santa Fe to find Colatura Di Alici (spelling?), I finally broke down and bought fish sauce after the 14th person told me it was the same thing and costs a lot less. I have to admit fish sauce sounds vile to me but I read the small print on the bottle and it says it’s made with sardines which is what Colatura di Alici is made from. I will try it, it was $12 something from Whole Foods. We shall see.

494 chars

alex said on January 27, 2016 at 4:23 pm

Colatura di Alici is made with anchovies, not sardines. But fear not the fish sauce. You’ve no doubt had it if you’ve eaten Thai food.

Brian, Alley Sally is just a Pearl Street ho who stayed in a flophouse. The po-po couldn’t bust her selling slit to buy crack so they just made this shit up.

295 chars

Suzanne said on January 27, 2016 at 4:33 pm

Anybody else get the feeling that Y’allquaida doesn’t quite grasp that they are not in an old John Wayne western? I know I watched those kind of movies when I was young and thought them very inspiring. Then I grew up.

217 chars

brian stouder said on January 27, 2016 at 4:36 pm

Alex – you got me laughing!

In all seriousness, the hotel detail was one that resonated with me, and made me feel a dash of….fear…akin to the sort of “what if” reaction one might have, if you drive through a big storm, and then find that a tornado was close by.

275 chars

MichaelG said on January 27, 2016 at 5:02 pm

Hattie, I lived in Pacifica in probably ’72 or ’73. I would guess it wasn’t much different from when you lived there. It sure was no Berkeley and I didn’t like it there. Funny, like you, when we left Pacifica, we moved to Berkeley.

Deborah, Colatura di Alici is very definitely different from Thai fish sauce. As Alex notes it’s made from anchovies to start with. It’s clear and thicker. Drizzle a little on pasta. Yum. You can get it on Amazon.

Yeah, there was a lot of right wing twitterage today that had the phrase “now that they’ve killed a cowboy.”

A cowboy?! As if that’s way, way more heinous than shooting an unarmed city kid in a hoodie. A cowboy! A middle-aged cowboy!

More like a sad, seditious guy wrapped in a blue tarp spinning tales of an alternative US history while brandishing firearms.

Yee-gads. Now what, we’ll be summoning the ghost of The Lone Ranger?

445 chars

Sherri said on January 27, 2016 at 5:32 pm

They didn’t shoot a cowboy. They shot Liberty Valance.

54 chars

Jolene said on January 27, 2016 at 5:53 pm

I think it’s been mentioned before, but, if you’re following the Flint water crisis, you may want to check out the town hall meeting on the topic to be held tonight. 9 PM EST on MSNBC.

184 chars

Dexter said on January 27, 2016 at 6:03 pm

Kirk. ..Andrea Kremer was indeed entertaining today. Since Imus quit TV Dan and his Danettes have been my AM mainstay. Chuck Barkley was good too with his take on Cam and race. Personally I agree with Dan…let Cam Newton have fun.

234 chars

Deborah said on January 27, 2016 at 7:01 pm

I have no idea why I said sardines when I meant anchovies. Sorry Alex, I totally meant anchovies.

97 chars

Little Bird said on January 27, 2016 at 9:20 pm

Best comment in my newsfeed about the porn watching motorist: coming and going don’t mix.

89 chars

FDChief said on January 27, 2016 at 9:25 pm

As a former GI, I’ve got to express admiration for an ambush that ends up with an 80%+ capture rate. You gotta figure that 10-20% of the muj will always choose to die rather than surrender, but ambush/takedowns are always dicey. The fact that the cops/feds bagged 5 of 6? Pretty impressive.

In re: the trope that Finicum is now a martyr, well…Indeed. And as Stalin is supposed to have asked regarding the “moral power” of the pope, how many divisions does this martyr possess?

These people already see themselves as heroes and martyrs fighting the quixotic battle against the Evil Empire. They live in Looneyland of “common law”, admiralty courts, and sovereign citizenship. Like any nutzoid zealots they will be dissuaded when they are laid by the heels.

To assume that a martyred hero will inflame they is to as far underassess their zealotry as is to assume that reason and negotiations will mollify them is to overassess their common sense.

Like the hard core of their fellow jihadi zealots, only age, weariness, failure, and death will end their relentless rage.

They are not for turning, and can serve only as a useful warning to the more fainthearted by their failures and useless deaths.

1223 chars

beb said on January 27, 2016 at 11:16 pm

Wasn’t Liberty Valance the badest of the badasses that everyone in that town was afraid to confront him. He was so badass that even John Wayne had to shoot him from the rear, from ambush. But, yeah, the dead guy’s a martyr to the cause now. Woopie…